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How can I deal with an abusive relationship?

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Host: How can I deal with an abusive relationship? Adrian Ashman: How do you deal with an abusive relationship? Very simple, you don t. Abusive relationships come in couple of forms. They come in the form of emotional abuse, they come in the form of physical abuse. Emotional abuse, bullying, mega control freaks who want to ensure that they will get this done, people who are violent towards their partner, again, this happens in same sex relationships and in heterosexual relationships. A person who is violent to another person is not in love with him, simple as that. You can't hurt someone that you respect or someone with whom you have great affection. It's not possible. So, the best thing to be is out of that relationship. That person may want the relationship, they may want you, they may need you, but the want and the need are not associated with love or affection. The want or the need are associated with personality defects. So, an abusive relationship where you can't communicate with another person, where you can't reason with them or one in which you are being beaten up, is not a relationship that is at all worthwhile sustaining, but it's important to realize that despite the fact that the person being abused might look at that other person and have a sense of love, it's not reciprocated. So, the only thing to do in a violent relationship is simply to get out of it and to try and do it as quickly as possible and as cleanly as possible. There are community support groups that are around to provide assistance and they are the people that you need to go to look for assistance and sometimes, for shelter. But you definitely do not need to be there. Get out.

Expert: Adrian Ashman

Email: adrian.ashman@bigpond.com

Adrian Ashman is currently Professor of Education and a former Head of School at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. He was trained in the 1970s as a psychologist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada and was elected as a Fellow of the American Psychological Association in 1991. He has operated private psychology practices in More »